The description relates to handoff of a secure connection among gateways.
A service provider can control access to its services (e.g., phone, e-mail, and Internet services) by using security gateways to authenticate and establish secure connections with access terminals (e.g., mobile phones or computers) that utilize the services. The secure connections can, e.g., prevent eavesdropping and avoid third party attacks to the networks of the service provider. The secure connections can be established using, e.g., Internet Key Exchange (IKE) v2/IPSec protocol.
The security gateway may support active session and dormant session connectivity. In an active session, data packets are transferred between the access terminal and the security gateway. If no data packet has been transferred for a predetermined period of time between the access terminal and the security gateway, the session may be moved to a dormant state. When an access terminal is in the dormant state, resources in the security gateway will not be allocated for this access terminal, freeing those resources for use by other access terminals in an active state.